


Twelfth

by Kahvi



Category: Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, F/F, Gender Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 07:54:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2805206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahvi/pseuds/Kahvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Viola is a twin, and not her brother. These, until one fateful crash on the colony world of Illyria, are all the facts of importance about her. Discovering who you really are can be complicated when the answer may be more than one thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twelfth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Themistoklis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themistoklis/gifts).



> To my recipient, for inspiring me with a fandom I had not offered, but ended up writing. To my betas, without whom I could not have written this.

My brother and I are clones, but more importantly, we're twins. We spent nine months together in the same in-vitro tank, his cross-sexed sequence reacting to different chemicals than mine. I don't know how they do that, but they tell me it’s important; I wouldn't know, I'm not a biologist. That was my mother's passion; she spent most of her adult life perfecting Sebastian's sequencing, waiting for the perfect moment to conceive us. She already had the perfect job and the perfect home; the perfect child would be the ultimate accessory and heir. I was an afterthought; a bonus, though she always insisted that she loved me very much. This was long before the crash, of course; we were not rapid-grown, and had spent nearly twenty years in one another's company outside the tank much as we had done within; intertwined and near-inseparable. That's what made his death so inconceivable. 

The ship had split neatly in half, piercing Illyria's atmosphere neatly with its broken bow. We may never know what happened; the Captain tells me its memory has been wiped of the event, or possibly it was never recorded. In any case, knowing will not bring my brother back. He was in the forward section, I the aft; the former exploding magnificently upon entry, no doubt a pretty spectacle for anyone watching below. I stood by the charred wreckage and saw his disintegrated pod myself; there was no more left of the body within than could be scraped into a sample bag, and so I did, without much hope. I grabbed his mind from storage (always kept in the opposite habitation section for safety, and I'll admit I laughed at that particular security measure before this day) and fled, the Captain guiding me to the emergency services in port.

If you think it ghoulish, what I did next, I will not blame you. But see, it had to be that way. Illyria is a young, rich frontier world, ripe with opportunity for quick-witted diplomats, merchants, scientists and investors, and dangerous to most everyone else. My mother was the scientist; my brother the diplomat; I am just Viola. There was no way I could survive here. But Sebastian could.

It's not supposed to be possible, but everyone knows it's still done. The Captain didn't seem to mind helping; perhaps its mind had been more heavily damaged in the crash than either of us had realized; at any rate, we made quick work of the download. My brother's mind was in my mind now; dormant, slaved to mine. At least in this, he would live on, until such time as we could reconstruct his body, if it could be done. To my shame, I didn't rush to the nearest hospital - perhaps if I had... but then, of course, I would never have found her. And in truth I don't know what I would do if I had never met Olivia.

I am a singer. I rarely think of myself as such, for no other reason than I rarely think of myself as anything. I sing well. That is, perhaps, a better way of putting it. Being as much for decoration as anything else, I easily took to occupations which both pleased me and was pleasant to my surroundings, which is to say, my mother's vast household. I've never really had a trade or a profession, you see, I've never had the need or interest. Before the crash, until that point, I had existed, not so much in my brother's shadow, as in his comfortable wake; like a dolphin giddily following a speeding ship. We were the same, after all; his perfect genes were mine just as much - all I lacked was his experience. My brother, conversely, could sing just as well as me, though he never did; he used his gifted voice for another purpose: that of diplomacy. For years, he'd been the star of the junior diplomatic corps, and would, no doubt, have had glorious career in front of him in Ilyria had he not, so recently, disintegrated in the planet's atmosphere. Now, his mind in mine, guiding me, this all was mine for the taking. 

One space suit is much like another; form-fitting and utilitarian grey, one-size fits all genders. I was not given a second glance throughout the port, and at the first available recequencer, I slipped inside, looked in the booth's dulled mirror and tried to recall each and every one of my brother's features. No clone, no twin, even, is entirely like its other; Sebastian and I were together in all things, or most, but even we had lines in different places around our eyes, birthmarks, freckles, and now, unevenly healing scars. Flicking through the service lists and tallying my few remaining credits, it struck me with an unexpected fierceness that even with full access to his memories (I had not breached them yet; later, I told myself), and a face and body perfectly matching, I would never pass for Sebastian without constant vigilance at my body; my poise, my expressions, the way I moved my hands. My speech, too, would have to be modulated - there was a fix for that, but costly, and besides, I like my voice. (Like I said, I am a singer.) Time was running short; the harbor police would have reached the wreckage by now, and looking for the owners. If I did not appear soon, they would assume us both dead. 

I paused at this, dropping my finger from the scrolling menu. 

It had not occurred to me, until that moment, that I had a different choice in this matter. If they would assume Viola dead, might they not also assume Sebastian so? My face stared back at me in the mirror, and I saw that it could be something... other. Not my brother. Not myself. 

In that moment, Cesario was born.

* * *

I had spent barely a week in Orsino's employ when he asked me for sex. I minded less than I would have expected; men are not usually my thing. Men are more my brother's tastes, and I'll admit I wondered, stupidly, just how much Sebastian's spirit was affecting my own. It doesn't work like that. It barely, as it turns out, works at all, works at all, even with brains so similar as his and mine - I had access to his memories, such as they were, and it was hard to separate them from my own. Then again, we'd spent so much of our short lives together that really, I decided, it was all one. But mind transfers are meant to imprint on empty brains; on fresh new flesh, grown specifically for the purpose. Sebastian could no more live in my brain than could the learning programs I dutifully uploaded whenever mother told me to. He could not think or feel - there was no him to do so. But I am straying from the point; perhaps I'd rather not dwell on it. Not that it was unpleasant; like I said, I minded less than I'd expected. Orsino was and is a significant man, both in influence and stature, and I have always been drawn to imposing figures. I had not changed my body, and he asked no questions - fashionably retro as Illyria is with it gender politics and social mores, it seems to draw the line at policing genitalia. He made it clear, however, that our fun was only that; a distraction and pastime while he pursued his true passion. 

Ah yes, I have yet to mention: Orsino's love was much the same as that of all Illyria's elite - power. And none had power like the lovely Olivia, sole surviving sibling of one of the young nation's founding families. That it had been families, truly, went some ways towards explaining the planet's political infrastructure (words I would not have used before I co-opted my brother's mind), and Olivia and her brother had been all the more impressive for having been just two. Compared, Orsino was an upstart whelp, no doubt his primary reason for wooing her. That was not too strong a word; he truly meant to marry her, were she willing, which she most emphatically was not. It was never quite clear to me quite what he meant by the word; if it had different meaning in this world, if they would share a bed as well as a boardroom, but either way she was unmovable. But he did lust after her, bemoaning her obstinacy as he lay between my space-pale thighs, cursing between each thrust. 

I knew, then, that I had to meet her. I knew, too, that had he asked for my own hand, fool that I am, I would have accepted. Happily.

* * *

I have said little of Illyria itself - I don't doubt you're familiar with it, at least in passing. Newly terraformed, it stretches from sea to shining sea on the largest island on the planet (the name of which it shares), speckled as it is with petty patches of land between rough waters. The climate, much like its settlers, is strong and unpredictable, but not unpleasant. It is a rich land, both in nature and wealth, and those who live here take great care to keep it so. The car that drove me to Olivia's estate was electric and silent, to the point where musical chimes had been employed to startle local wildlife that got too close to the smoothly paved road. All was new here, though it strove to look old; quite the opposite of my mother's estate (or indeed, the lady herself) I mused, my brother's ghost chiding me, or so I felt.  
I could not see the house, nor was I meant to; they blend in with the landscape, Illyria's buildings, the more fully the better. I shifted uncomfortably in the back seat while the car's AI argued patiently with the mansion's holographic staff, one of whom gave me a look of ice and fire as we were finally allowed to enter. I stared back, calmly. I was not here on my own behalf, and there was unexpected confidence to take from that. As we passed them by, I even found a smile. 

The car let me off by what was said to be the 'garden door', though what was door and what was garden was beyond me. I stood, therefore, quite forlornly in the middle when I noticed that what had appeared to be a bed of roses, was in fact a bench. And on it, in shades of green and yellow-gold, sat two women. 

I say two - in truth, I saw only one. Illyrians are tall and broad, by fashion, but where Orsino was imposing, this woman was immense. Light did not escape her, but locked into her eyes and hair and shining suit, and boots that ran up nearly to her hips. She saw me, and I was undone. 

That I managed to speak was a miracle; perhaps I didn't. Perhaps I dreamed it all? I recall, vaguely, asking to address the lady of the house. Sebastian, at last, had taken over. Well, as I said, women rarely did move him. 

The ladies, and yes, I saw now, there were two, giggled amongst themselves. Playing some game, no doubt, despite the lady's much-advertised mourning. Well, had I not lost a brother too? Yet, here I stood, my mouth spewing overdone compliments from the vault of that same brother's mind. Mine was not a glass house from which to throw stones, in the least. At last, she cut me off:

"So who are you? Where are you from?"

I - Sebastian - did not stumble. Words flowed like from an uncorked champagne bottle, just as sickly sweet. And as I spoke I looked, tried not to stare. Who was I? What a question! If only I knew. 

"You're a funny little man, aren't you?" Again, they laughed. My heart ached, but I smiled, in turn.

"No more or less than any. Tell me; please: are you the lady of the house?"

Finally, she slipped. I listened to my brother's words with half an ear; a diplomat is just a fancy word for salesman, and I could tell he was getting closer to his pitch. 

"Get to the point," she purred, having surmised the same. 

He - I - didn't. It was strange, to see myself as from the outside; there was nothing of me in this ostentatious flirt unfolding. Not for the first time, I felt unsisterly jealous of my brother. Though Olivia, it seemed, was growing weary.

"Please. Spill it. I heard you at the gates, you know. That's quite a mouth you have on you; I only invited you up to get a closer look at it."

I nearly gasped. No time, however, as she moved swiftly on:

"You're either crazy or you think I'm on the fucking rag; either way, you better have something more interesting to say, or I will have you thrown out."

"She will, you know," her companion tittered. Companion, yes. I - or Sebastian, it was sometimes hard to tell - had heard of this one. Maria was her name; officially a valet and a servant. _Un_ officially... 

"I'm just a messenger," I heard myself say. "I'll stay until you hear me out." 

"Fine," she snorted, "have it your way." She seemed amused. Perhaps she really was. "Whatever you have to say has got to be a riot, the way you keep avoiding getting to it."

We smiled then, me, my brother and Cesario all. "For your ears only." 

"Look, I don't know you. Tell me who you are and what you want!" 

"I'm sorry if I seem rude; I rarely do, in good company." I was pushing it, I knew, but I couldn't help it. Besides, if I had truly offended - or worse - bored her, she would have had me removed by now. "What I am... what I mean to engender..." I glanced at Maria, not unkindly. "Well, it would transpire differently to your ears, and in your company, than in that of-"

A short, courteous wave of her hand, and Maria was gone; lost in the pale rose wall. "No, really; engender away. We'll see how it transpires." The smile on her lips were the color of her flowers, though, presumably, more acidic. I'm no better with flowers than I am with people; I wouldn't know. 

"Dear lady-"

"I'm worth less than most people imagine. Don't let me ask you again; what's your agenda?"

"Not mine; Orsinos."

"Right; I'm calling security."

But she didn't. Illyria may be a wonderland of modern tech, but I've yet to hear of alarms that are triggered by mind alone. No part of her stirred, not even her half-raised eyebrows. "Though it may be his; I have made it my own - from his words, I had to see you in person."

"His words! I've heard them. I was hoping to hear yours. I still haven't." 

"I just wanted to see your face," I blurted out. All me, that one; and she noticed. Did she flush slightly as she spoke? My imagination, I'm sure, poor as it may be. 

"Well, I'm sure Orsino didn't send you here to negotiate with my face. Fine: I'll give you the grand tour." She tilted her chin, turning her head this way and that. "There. That's the main attraction. Did you enjoy the show?"

"Naturally," I said, back in possession of all my selves.

"Oh, it's all natural."

"What a shame - how cruel of you to take such beauty with you to the grave and leave the world no copy!"

She laughed then, finally; a brash, contralto burst, a little unexpected. I do enjoy the unexpected. "Go to any body shop in downtown Illyria, and you'll find a multitude of copies; divers schedules, as they say, of my beauty inventoried, every particle, lip, eyes, lids, chins, necks and so forth labelled to or against my will. Same difference. Did Orsino send you here to flatter me?"

"I'm glad to see you're not burdened by pride," I quipped, smooth as her flawless skin. "But no matter your nature, you are beautiful, and Orsino loves you more than the sum thereof."

"So how does he love me?" Not quite a challenge, but, I sensed; a business question: she was considering the proposal! My pulse quickened, for which reasons I did not quite care to analyze. I was not prepared for this; I had been given no terms to present her, and so resorted to diverting hyperbole: 

"With adorations, fertile tears, with groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire!"

She sighed. "Orsino knows where I stand. As things are, though I consider him a noble, virtuous man; knowledgeable, well-spoken, ethical and liberal, and hold him in the highest regard, I just can't love him. You’d think he’d know that answer by now. "

Perhaps it was the sun. Perhaps the lack thereof; perhaps the state of my fractured, flailing mind; whichever it was, I found myself thrown at her feet, kneeling by her boot-tops, pleading to her grey-green eyes: "If I loved you like Orsino, with such suffering, such a deadly life, I would find your denial absurd; I would not understand it. " I. I, _I_ , I. I edged the words, and saw her notice. Her chest rise, her eyes widen. 

"Why,” she halted, “what would you…”

"Make me a willow cabin at your gate, and call upon my soul within the house; write loyal cantons of contemned love, and sing them loud even in the dead of night; call your name to the reverberate hills, and make the babbling gossip of the air cry out 'Olivia!' Oh, you should not rest between the elements of air and earth, but you should pity me!" I exhaled, or tried. Nothing came out. I sat and stared. She stared back, and so we sat in the garden, she and I, these breathless words between us. 

"That’s… a lot," she muttered, some centuries later. "Tell me, please; who are you?" 

"A man," I said too quickly, "of means, for a given value thereof.”

"Go back to Orsino. I can't love him; tell him not to bother anymore. I don’t want any more of his messengers. Unless…"

I waited. We waited. 

"…unless you were to come again.”

* * *

Orsino took me to his bed that night, and I'm not sure if I were surprised or even if I should have been. Whatever he was looking for in me, it was not Olivia; I could tell as much from how he handled me. I was a man, to him, which was not what he truly wanted. Possibly, that made me a safe indulgence. Possibly, his own desires puzzled him. Who's to say? We enjoyed one another, and though he did not dazzle me like the woman he had sent me to woo, I was still drawn to him. After all, you can only stand to look directly at the sun for so long.

Afterwards he asked me to sing, which wasn't unusual, then urged me to speak, which was. He wanted to hear more about her of course; the woman we were both, now, courting. Orsino pulled the words out of me, and I tried my best to comply. In the end, I let Sebastian take over, and retreated to back of my own mind, to doze. He seemed to like Sebastian. There was no question that he liked Cesario. I wondered, drifting lazily, what he would think of me.

* * *

After that day, he sent me to Olivia again and again, seeing 'my evident effect on her', as he put it. I went - of course I went - but what effect I had on her I could not say. In my short life, I realized, I had not been in love until right now. When I saw her again, she seemed shorter, her hair less pure sunshine and brazen gold; more dark blonde and a little lank, not from neglect, but lack of priority. She was, in short, more beautiful than ever and I was smitten. A ridiculous word, but Sebastian told me it was fitting, and perhaps it was. Whatever political consequences our meetings had were beyond me; I knew only that Orsino was happy, and grew happier after each of my visits to her. He showed that happiness and gratitude in increasingly predictable ways, and I came to enjoy that, too. I was still fond of him; my fondness a gentle, comfortable thing compared to what I felt when I was with Olivia. She was my sun, still. I wanted Orsino, but I needed her. 

Did Orsino know? Looking back, I think he must have. He certainly did not mind. It may be that he had come to see me as an extension of himself; after all, he took all my other accomplishments for his own. And why not; he was my employer, after all. And so the days went; I courted Olivia, returned to Orsino to be courted by him in turn, and spent my days shuttling between the grad estates.

Most weekday afternoons were my own to do with as I wished, so long as I didn't stray too far from corporate ground. You never knew when someone might need coffee or a blowjob. Does that sound harsh? I didn't mean for it to. Orsino and his entourage were excellent employers, and there was never anything done to me against my will. I was beginning to understand, however, that the job for which I had been hired was not so much an actual position as an excuse to keep an attractive young person around for various purposes. Be it running errands, walking a variety of exotic pets, providing sexual favors or simply brightening up a boring meeting, I was, in short, expected to be around and available. 

I've had worse jobs. Well, no, I've had worse situations. This was my first real job. 

There were some, however, that gave me a bit of trouble. A few strays from what was implausibly, to my inexperienced ears, referred to as Orsino's court - had taken a shining to me for whatever reason, and would delight in making me feel like the impostor I was. To their defense, they were most often high on whatever they could scrounge from the communal pantry; as much entertaining as Orsino's estate did, they kept an impressive assortment of intoxicants in stock. In what little personal time I had, I would try to escape them.

My favorite hiding place was the downtown market, which was modeled on the great ones in Earth’s great and ancient Middle East, or more likely, what Illyrians imagined the great and ancient Middle East to have been like. I wouldn't know; I'm not much of a... well, actually, I did dabble a little in history. It's just reading, when you get right down to it, and I have had a lot of time for reading. Illyrian markets, or this one, at least, are loud and colorful and a lot smaller than they appear as you are walking through them. There is always something to distract you from what is currently holding your attention, which must be why I only noticed the gene-carnival at its very outskirts on my third or fourth visit there, about a month or so after I arrived. My brother's mind stirred in my own, and steered me guiltily towards the cloning booth. There would be better facilities at a hospital, but though Orsino paid me well, it would take me years to save up for such a high-grade rebodying. He could always be resequenced later - together we would earn more, and could... My thoughts faltered as I felt someone's eyes on me. 

The booths were festive and gay, festooned with neon and tinsel and glittering holograms, each proclaiming a different, miraculous service, and to the side of one light-pulsing door stood a furtive figure, glancing my way. It was an average sized person, male-looking, but not overtly so. From their position I could not clearly see them, but when the colors flashed over their eyes, I took a step back. Then, I noticed he was no just observing me, but the group of boisterous courtiers that, it now appeared, had followed me here.  
"There's the little one," one of them boomed, shoving a force-knife into my hand. Before I could react or protest, the others jeered and pushed me back, one of the taller and burlier one taking out a knife of his own. 

"Now, let's see you fight, boy-man," said the one with the knife. 

I am no more a fighter than I am a scientist or anything else, but as I didn't know how to handle a weapon, I did not want to wrestle out of someone's grip while holding one and having another pointed at me. Just as I was trying to access my brother's memory for possible solutions, the stranger burst forth and yelled: 

"This young man hasn't done anything to you - if you must pick a fight, pick one with me!"  
They turned, as one, and I realized they knew this person. Suddenly there were sirens, and all I could hear through the ensuing din was a pleading voice "what about my money?" I searched for the face from the shadows, and I thought I could see... betrayal.

* * *

I should have put it together right there and then. The resequencer. The recognition on that face. It all came together so quickly after that. Olivia's reaction when she saw my resurrected brother was sadly predictable, though I’ll admit I had thought she preferred women. Then again, these things are hard to tell for ourselves, much less for others. As for Orsino, he was overjoyed to have a woman in me, to treat like a man. Sometimes, these days, he even calls me Viola. The stranger was easily explained; a pirate and corporate spy, wanted for crimes against several families, as well as Orsino’s estate. Having a habit of scavenging newly wrecked ships for valuables, he had found my brother’s memories and set off with them. And something else besides: While stealing away my brother’s mind, it never crossed my own that I had left something of myself behind – my sequence, in the surviving section, where I, it, and Sebastian’s memories had escaped unharmed. This man – known only as Antonio – decanted my brother in a body that was _mine_. I’m sure he had his reasons; he certainly had the means. I’ll say this much: he is my brother’s type. 

I sang at the wedding. Sebastian, resplendent in the golden robes of Olivia’s house smiled at me from across the room. He gave himself away, as I did myself, when the turn came to me and Orsino. I sang for us, too. I sang our vows, and the secular blessing to end the ceremony. There were fireworks. I’m told there always are. The wedding, I was told, was one of love and partnership, unlike the one between Olivia and Orsino, to which neither myself nor my brother were invited. Behind locked doors, they made promises Sebastian tried to explain to me, but I’ll admit I didn’t listen. 

As for Olivia and I... 

There are two endings to this story; a fairy tale one, and a true one. The former, you've already heard; a journey ending in lovers’ meetings. All’s well that ends… and so on and so forth. But Illyria being what it is, each stayed at their own estate, and sometimes, when the stars were right, bodies would move in the night from one place to another. I would have my sun, and Antonio his, too. And if we never speak of these things in daylight, does it matter?

I’ve kept my brother’s memories. Did I keep Cesario? Olivia would say no, I’m sure. She’s as good-intentioned as she’s lovely.


End file.
